A Critical Review of Risk Assessment Models for Listeria monocytogenes in Produce

• Published in: Foods 2024-04, Vol.13 (7), p.1-19
• Main Authors: Gonzales-Barron, Ursula, Cadavez, Vasco, Mota, Juliana de Oliveira, Guillier, Laurent, Sanaa, Moez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agricultural practices; Consumers; Contamination; Effectiveness; Exposure assessment; Food and Nutrition; Food chains; Food contamination; Food contamination & poisoning; Frozen foods; Fruits; Illnesses; Irrigation water; Leafy greens; Lettuce; Life Sciences; Listeria; Listeria monocytogenes; Listeriosis; Mathematical models; Microorganisms; Modules; Parameters; Population; Primary production; Risk assessment; Sensitivity analysis; Supply chains; Systematic review; Vegetables
• ISSN: 2304-8158; 2304-8158
• DOI: 10.3390/foods13071111

A review of quantitative risk assessment (QRA) models of Listeria monocytogenes in produce was carried out, with the objective of appraising and contrasting the effectiveness of the control strategies placed along the food chains. Despite nine of the thirteen QRA models recovered being focused on fresh or RTE leafy greens, none of them represented important factors or sources of contamination in the primary production, such as the type of cultivation, water, fertilisers or irrigation method/practices. Cross-contamination at processing and during consumer's handling was modelled using transfer rates, which were shown to moderately drive the final risk of listeriosis, therefore highlighting the importance of accurately representing the transfer coefficient parameters. Many QRA models coincided in the fact that temperature fluctuations at retail or temperature abuse at home were key factors contributing to increasing the risk of listeriosis. In addition to a primary module that could help assess current on-farm practices and potential control measures, future QRA models for minimally processed produce should also contain a refined sanitisation module able to estimate the effectiveness of various sanitisers as a function of type, concentration and exposure time. Finally, L. monocytogenes growth in the products down the supply chain should be estimated by using realistic time-temperature trajectories, and validated microbial kinetic parameters, both of them currently available in the literature. WHO commissioned this critical review to serve as background document for the FAO/WHO Joint Expert Meeting on Microbiological Risk Assessment (JEMRA), which was held in Rome, Italy, from 24 to 28 October 2022. The authors are grateful to the JEMRA experts * and the FAO/WHO secretariat ** for their suggestions and feedback. * Hamzah Al-Qadiri, Sukhadeo B Barbuddhe, Ursula A. Gonzales-Barron, Heidy M. W. den Besten, Qingli Dong, Laurent Guillier, Claudia Guldimann, Ludwig Maximilian, Jovana Kovacevic, Alejandra Latorre, Yumiko Okada, Taran Skjerdal, Matthew J. Stasiewicz, and Paula Teixeira. ** Juliana De Oliveira Mota, Akio Hasegawa, Christine Kopko, Jeffrey LeJeune, Moez Sanaa, and Kang Zhou.